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6.3.Supplementive use of the adjective

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This section discusses the supplementive use of adjectives, subsection I starts by pointing out some differences between complementive and supplementive adjectives. These involve the semantic relation between the adjective and the verbal predicate, the noun phrase the adjective is predicated of, and the position of the adjective within the clause, subsection II continues by briefly discussing how supplementives can be distinguished from manner adverbs, subsection III goes on to show that the supplementive adjectives must be divided into two groups on the basis of both semantic and syntactic criteria, subsection IV concludes with a discussion of the restrictions on the supplementive use of the adjective.

I. Differences between complementives and supplementives
II. Differences between supplementives and manner adverbs
III. Two types of supplementives
IV. Restrictions on the adjective and the verb
- A. Restrictions on the adjective: stage- vs. individual-level predicates
- B. Restrictions on the verb

[+] I. Differences between complementives and supplementives

Complementive and supplementive adjectives are both predicated of noun phrases, which typically function as the subject or the direct object of their clause. For supplementives this is illustrated in (119a) and (119b), respectively; the predication relation is indicated by italics.

119

a.	Jan ging	dronken	naar huis.
	Jan went	drunk	to home
	'Jan went home drunk.'

b.	Marie zet	de fles	leeg	in de kast.
	Marie puts	the bottle	empty	into the cupboard
	'Marie is putting the bottle into the cupboard empty.'

The examples in (120) show that the supplementive cannot be predicated of an indirect object or a prepositional complement: in (120a) the supplementive may be predicated of the subject Jan but not of the indirect object Marie, and (120b) has no interpretation at all.

120

a.	*?	Jan gaf	Marie	de fles	dronken.
		Jan gave	Marie	the bottle	drunk
		'Jan gave Marie the bottle drunk.'

b.	*	Marie keek	naar de fles	leeg.
		Marie looked	at the bottle	empty

Note, however, that the unaccusative constructions in the primeless examples of (121) also contain an indirect object; cf. Section V2.1.3. Although judgments are a bit unclear, examples like these seem to give rise to a better result than example (120a). The examples improve even further if the supplementive is placed in clause-initial position, as in the primed examples.

121

a.	??	Er	verschijnen	haar/Marie	dronken	altijd	roze olifantjes.
		there	appear	her/Marie	drunk	always	pink elephants
		'When sheʼs drunk, pink elephants always appear to her/Marie.'

a'.

Dronken verschijnen er haar/Marie altijd roze olifantjes.

b.	?	Er	zijn	Peter/hem	dronken	nog nooit	ongelukken	overkomen.
		there	are	Peter/him	drunk	yet never	accidents	happened
		'While he was drunk, accidents never happened to him/Peter.'

b'.

Dronken zijn Peter/hem nog nooit ongelukken overkomen.

c.	?	De argumenten van de dokter	bevallen	mij	ziek	altijd	beter.
		the arguments of the doctor	please	me	ill	always	better
		'When Iʼm ill, the arguments of the doctor always please me more.'

c'.

Ziek bevallen de argumenten van de dokter mij altijd beter.

Supplementive and complementive adjectives differ in various respects. Some of these differences are discussed in Subsections A-C; Subsection IV will discuss the differences with respect to the types of adjectives that can be used in complementive and supplementive functions.

[+] A. The relation between the adjective and the verbal predicate

The most conspicuous difference between supplementives and complementives is that the former can be freely added to almost any clause that contains an activity verb (cf. Subsection IV), whereas the latter occur only with a restricted set of verbs (cf. Section 6.2). Further, the optionality of the supplementive adjectives in (122) suggests that they can be appropriately characterized as adjuncts.

122

a.		Jan vertrok	(kwaad).
		Jan left	angry

b.	Jan ging	(dronken)	naar huis.
	Jan went	drunk	to home
	'Jan went home drunk.'

c.	Jan zong	(vrolijk)	een liedje.
	Jan sang	merry	a song
	'Jan sang a song, merry.'

The complementive adjectives in (123a-c), on the other hand, are obligatorily present, which suggests that they act as complements of the verb. The obligatoriness of the complementives is due to the fact that they are needed to license the noun phrases de hond/het gras. The fact that the complementive is optional in (123d) is of course due to the fact that the noun phrase de hond can be licensed either as the subjectof the complementive or as the patient argument of the transitive verb slaan'to hit'. See Section 6.2.1, sub II, for more detailed discussion.

123

a.		De hond	is *(dood).
		the dog	is dead

b.		Marie vindt	de hond	*(aardig).
		Marie considers	the dog	nice

c.		Peter loopt	het gras	*(plat).
		Peter walks	the grass	flat

d.		Jan	slaat	de hond	(dood).
		Jan	beats	the dog	dead

The bond between the complementive adjective and the verb is thus much stronger than between the supplementive adjective and the verb, which is also reflected in that the meaning of the supplementive constitutes a substantial part of the core proposition expressed by the clause. The semantic contribution of the supplementive, on the other hand, is often assumed to be “supplementary" with respect to the core proposition: the semantic relation between the supplementive and the remainder of the clause is often described by means of the loose notion of “simultaneousness". In (122a), for instance, it is expressed that the event of leaving and the state of being angry apply simultaneously to the referent of the noun phrase Jan. Crucially, neither of the two predicates is really dependent on the other: the supplementive merely provides additional information about the subject or the direct object.

[+] B. The noun phrase the adjective is predicated of

Complementive and supplementive adjectives are predicated of either the subject or the direct object of their clause. With complementives, the predication relation is always unambiguously determined. When there is no accusative object, as in the copular construction in (123a), the complementive is predicated of the subject of the clause. However, if an accusative object is present, the complementive must be predicated of this object: example (123b) cannot be interpreted in such a way that it is Marie that is considered kind; (123c) expresses that the grass becomes flat.
The examples in (124), on the other hand, show that ambiguity may arise with supplementive adjectives. Example (124a), for example, can express either that Marie is drunk or that the guests are drunk (but not both). Although some speakers may prefer one of the two readings, we can readily demonstrate that we are dealing with a genuine case of ambiguity by replacing one of the animate arguments by an inanimate one: the supplementive must be predicated of the subject in (124b), but of the object in (124c).

124

a.	dat	Marie de gasten	dronken	naar huis	bracht.
	that	Marie the guests	drunk	to home	brought
	'that Marie brought the guests home, while she/they was/were drunk.'

b.	dat	Marie de boeken	dronken	naar huis	bracht.
	that	Marie the books	drunk	to home	brought
	'that Marie brought the books home, while she was drunk.'

c.	dat	de taxi	de gasten	dronken	naar huis	bracht.
	that	the taxi	the guests	drunk	to home	brought
	'that the taxi brought the guests home, while they were drunk.'

The examples in (125) provide two more cases, in which meaning determines whether the supplementive is predicated of the subject or the object.

125

a.	dat	Marie zulke dingen	alleen	dronken	zegt.
	that	Marie such things	only	drunk	says
	'that Marie says such things only if sheʼs drunk.'

b.	dat	Marie die fles	leeg	in de kast	zet.
	that	Marie that bottle	empty	into the cupboard	puts
	'that Marie puts that bottle into the cupboard empty.'

The examples in (126) show that he supplementive adjective must follow the noun phrase it is predicated of: although (126a) is fully acceptable, it differs from (124a) in that dronken cannot be predicated of the direct object de gasten; it is Marie that is drunk. The examples in (126b&c) further show that whereas the supplementive adjective may precede the direct object in (125a), in which it is predicated of the subject, this is not possible in (125b), in which it is predicated of the object.

126

a.		dat	Marie dronken	de gasten	naar huis	bracht.
		that	Marie drunk	the guests	to home	brought

b.		dat	Marie zulke dingen	alleen	dronken	zegt.
		that	Marie such things	only	drunk	says

c.	*	dat	Marie leeg	die fles	in de kast	zet.
		that	Marie empty	that bottle	into the cupboard	puts

Another difference between complementives and supplementives is that the noun phrase the adjective is predicated of can only be left unexpressed in the latter case. For example, if we passivize example (125a), as in (127a), the supplementive adjective dronken can be felicitously used regardless of whether the passive door-phrase is present or not. This is, however, only possible if the supplementive cannot be predicated of the subject of the passive construction for semantic reasons; example (127b) cannot be interpreted in such a way that it is the implied agent who is drunk.

127

a.	dat	zulke dingen	(door Marie)	alleen	dronken	worden	gezegd.
	that	such things	by Marie	only	drunk	are	said
	'that such things are only said (by Marie) drunk.'

b.	dat	de gasten	dronken	naar huis	werden	gebracht.
	that	the guests	drunk	to home	were	brought
	'that the guests were brought home drunk.'

[+] C. The position of the adjectives within the clause

In the northern varieties of Dutch, complementives are immediately left-adjacent to the verbs in clause-final position in the unmarked case; cf. Section 6.2.2, example (58). The examples in (124) show, however, that this does not hold for supplementives; their position can be more to the left. Furthermore, if a clause contains both a supplementive and a complementive adjective, they are always strictly ordered: the examples in (128) show that the former must precede the latter. The number sign in (128b') indicates that this examples may receive the—in this context irrelevant—interpretation in which ergerlijk acts as modifier of dronken: “drunk in an annoying way".

128

a.	dat	Jan dronken	al gauw	ziek	is.
	that	Jan drunk	already quickly	sick	is
	'that Jan tends to get sick, when drunk.'

a'.

dat Jan al gauw ziek dronken is.

b.	dat	ik	Jan dronken	al snel	ergerlijk	vind.
	that	I	Jan drunk	already quickly	annoying	consider
	'that I tend to consider him to be annoying, when heʼs drunk.'

b'.

dat ik Jan al snel ergerlijk dronken vind.

c.	dat	hij	zijn overhemden	altijd	nat	glad	strijkt.
	that	he	his shirts	always	wet	smooth	irons
	'that he irons his shirts smooth, while they are wet.'

c'.

dat hij zijn overhemden altijd glad nat strijkt.

In some cases, such as (128a&b), the supplementive adjective must precede not only the complementive adjective, but also adverbial phrases like al gauw'already quickly' and al snel'already quickly'.

129

a.	*	dat	Jan al gauw	dronken	ziek	is.
		that	Jan already quickly	drunk	sick	is

b.	*	dat	ik	Jan al snel	dronken	ergerlijk	vind.
		that	I	Jan already quickly	drunk	annoying	consider

In other cases, however, the supplementive can follow the adverbial phrase. In (128c), for example, the supplementive nat'wet' follows the adverb altijd'always'. In some cases, the supplementive is not even able to precede the adverbial phrase, as in (130). The factors that determine the relative position of these adverbial phrases and supplementives are discussed in Subsection III.

130

a.	dat	Jan al weken	ziek	in bed ligt.
	that	Jan for weeks	ill	in bed lies
	'that Jan has been lying ill in bed for weeks.'

dat Jan ziek al weken in bed ligt.

[+] II. Differences between supplementives and manner adverbs

Supplementives can easily be confused with adverbially used adjectives, like the ones given in (131), which should be distinguished from the supplementives on semantic grounds; whereas the supplementives are predicated of noun phrases, manner adverbs specify the manner in which the action denoted by the verb (phrase) proceeds. The adverbially used adjectives beleefd'politely', voorzichtig'carefully' and snel'quickly', for example, are not predicated of the noun phrase Jan (Jan may be rude, careless or slow in various respects), but indicate the way in which the action denoted takes place. More differences between supplementives and manner adverbs are discussed in Section 8.2.2.

131

a.	Jan spreekt	zijn begeleider	beleefd	aan.
	Jan addresses	his supervisor	politely	prt.
	'Jan addresses his supervisor politely.'

b.	Jan pakte	zijn boeken	voorzichtig	op.
	Jan took	his books	carefully	up
	'Jan picked up his books carefully.'

c.	Jan liep	snel	weg.
	Jan walked	quickly	away
	'Jan walked away quickly.'

[+] III. Two types of supplementives

This subsection shows that there are two types of supplementives, which exhibit differences in meaning, distribution and syntactic behavior. For lack of a better alternative we will refer to the two types as supplementive-I and supplementive–II.

[+] A. Supplementive-I and –II: their position in the clause

The relation between the supplementive adjective and the clause is generally described as one of “simultaneousness"; cf. Haeseryn et al. (1997:1184). This notion correctly suggests that (132a) is interpreted in such a way that the event of going home and the state of being satisfied apply to the referent of the noun phrase Jan at the same time, and that (132b) is interpreted in such a way that the event of being ironed and the state of being wet simultaneously apply to the shirts.

132

a.	Jan gaat	tevreden	naar huis.
	Jan goes	satisfied	to home
	'Jan goes home and he is satisfied.'

b.	Jan strijkt	zijn overhemden	nat.
	Jan irons	his shirts	wet
	'Jan irons his shirts, while theyʼre wet.'

Sometimes, however, the term simultaneousness seems to be less appropriate. Consider the examples in (133). The most natural interpretation of (133a), for instance, does not seem to be that the activity of speaking incomprehensible nonsense and the state of being drunk apply to Jan simultaneously at one particular time. The supplementive and the clause are instead in a conditional relationship, in which the supplementive (and the noun phrase it is predicated of) acts as the antecedent (= the when-part) and the clause as the consequent (= the then-part): when Jan is drunk, then he talks garbage. The same thing holds for (133b), as is indicated by means of the English paraphrase.

133

a.	Jan kraamt	dronken	onbegrijpelijke onzin	uit.
	Jan speaks	drunken	incomprehensible nonsense	prt.
	'Whenever heʼs drunk, Jan talks incomprehensible nonsense.'

b.	Jan eet	ziek	pap.
	Jan eats	ill	porridge
	'Whenever heʼs ill, Jan eats porridge.'

Note that the notion of simultaneousness is also retained in examples such as (133), given that the English rendering involves the temporal connectives when ..., then ...; the purely conditional paraphrase if ..., then ... is not appropriate. In Dutch, this distinction between the two types of conditional clauses cannot be made as easily; both involve the connectives als ..., dan ...
The semantic difference between the examples in (132) and (133) is associated with various other differences. The first involves the intonation patterns of the examples: the supplementive adjectives in (133) are followed by a rise in the intonation contour, whereas this is impossible in (132a).
Second, when we add clausal adverbs like waarschijnlijk'probably' or altijd'always' (cf. Section 8.2.1), it becomes clear that the difference in interpretation between (132) and (133) correlates with a difference in word order. The examples in (134) show that the supplementive adjectives tevreden and nat from (132) must follow the adverb (although one could imagine situations in which the orders that are marked ungrammatical are possible in a conditional reading).

134

a.	Jan gaat <*?tevreden>	altijd <tevreden>	naar huis.
	Jan goes satisfied	always	to home
	'Whenever Jan goes home, heʼs satisfied.'

b.	Jan strijkt	zijn overhemden	<*nat>	altijd <nat>.
	Jan irons	his shirts	wet	always
	'Whenever Jan irons his shirts, they are wet.'

The examples in (135), on the other hand, show that the supplementives dronken and ziek from (133) preferably precede the clausal adverbs (the unacceptable word orders may be marginally possible if the supplementive is explicitly represented as belonging to the new information of the clause, e.g., as an answer to the question: Wanneer kraamt Jan altijd onbegrijpelijke onzin uit?'When does Jan always talk incomprehensible nonsense?').

135

a.	Jan kraamt	<dronken>	altijd <*dronken>	onbegrijpelijk onzin	uit.
	Jan speaks	drunken	always	incomprehensible nonsense	prt.
	'Whenever heʼs drunk, Jan talks incomprehensible nonsense.'

b.	Jan eet	<ziek>	altijd <*ziek>	pap.
	Jan eats	ill	always	porridge
	'Whenever heʼs ill, Jan eats porridge.'

For ease of reference, we will refer to the supplementive adjectives in (135), which precede the clausal adverbs, as supplementive-I, and to the supplementive adjectives in (134), which follow them, as supplementive-II.
The addition of the clausal adverb altijd in (134) excludes the simultaneity reading of the examples in (132): the examples in (134) are instead interpreted as conditionals also, although the logical implications of (134) are of a different nature than those of (135): whereas the clause acts as the consequent in (135), it acts as the antecedent in (134). The respective implications are represented in (136) and (137), in which ⇒ and ⇏ are interpreted as “always implies" and “does not imply", respectively.

136

Jan goes home ⇒ Jan is satisfied

a'.

Jan is satisfied ⇏ Jan goes home

Jan irons his shirts ⇒ his shirts are wet

b'.

his shirts are wet ⇏ Jan irons them

137

Jan talks nonsense ⇏ Jan is drunk

a'.

Jan is drunk ⇒Jan talks nonsense

Jan eats porridge ⇏ Jan is ill

b'.

Jan is ill ⇒ Jan eats porridge

A minimal pair is given in (138): in (138a), the adjective precedes the clausal adverb altijd'always' and we are therefore dealing with a supplementive-I, which is also clear from the validity of the logical implication in (138a''); in (138b) the adjective nat follows the clausal adverb altijd and we are therefore dealing with a supplementive-II, which is also clear from the validity of the logical implication in (138b'). Note that the adjective glad is not a supplementive, but a resultative adjective.

138

a.	Jan strijkt	zijn overhemden	nat	altijd	glad.	supplementive-I
	Jan irons	his shirts	wet	always	smooth
	'Whenever his shirts are wet, Jan irons them smooth.'

a'.

Jan irons his shirts smooth ⇏ his shirts are wet

a''.

his shirts are wet ⇒ Jan irons his shirts smooth

b.	Jan strijkt	zijn overhemden	altijd	nat	glad.	supplementive-II
	Jan irons	his shirts	always	wet	smooth
	'Whenever Jan irons his shirts smooth, they are wet.'

b'.

Jan irons his shirts smooth ⇒ his shirts are wet

b''.

his shirts are wet ⇏ Jan irons his shirts smooth

Observe that replacement of the universally quantified adverb altijd'always' in (134) and (135) by an adverb like meestal'generally' would have the semantic effect that the implications in (136) and (137) do not always hold but only generally. In other words, the arrow is then interpreted not as “always implies" but as “generally implies". In our representations, the semantic contribution of the clausal adverb is thus captured in the interpretation of the arrow; a formal semantic representation would involve an operator quantifying over time. In the examples below, we will generally make use of the adverb altijd, because this enable us to keep the semantic representations of these examples as simple as possible, that is, as simple material implications without making use of modal operators and possible worlds in the sense of predicate logic.
The examples in (138) also show that supplementive-I and supplementive-II both precede the complementive, in this case the adjective glad'smooth'. The examples in (139) show that they also precede prepositional complements of the verb (unless the latter is assigned focus and moved leftward).

139

a.	Jan praat	dronken	altijd	over zijn problemen.	supplementive-I
	Jan talks	drunk	always	about his problems
	'Whenever heʼs drunk, Jan talks about his problems.'

b.	Jan praat	altijd	tevreden	over zijn carrière.	supplementive-II
	Jan talks	always	satisfied	about his career
	'Whenever Jan talks about his career, he is/sounds satisfied.'

Summarizing the discussion above, we may say that the use of supplementive-II, that is, placement of the adjective after the quantified adverb altijd, implies that if the proposition expressed by the verbal part of the clause is true, the predicate expressed by the adjective also applies (but not vice versa), whereas supplementive-I implies that the reversed situation holds.

[+] B. Co-occurrence of supplementive-I and -II

Supplementive-I and supplementive-II may co-occur within one clause. As is to be expected on the basis of the examples in the previous subsection, the former necessarily precedes the latter. Some examples are given in (140). The fact that supplementive-I and -II may co-occur suggests that they are not two different applications of one and the same grammatical function, but instantiations of two different grammatical functions. For completeness’ sake, the primed examples in (140) provide the valid implications; the reversed implications do not hold.

140

a.	Jan gaat	dronken	(altijd)	ziek	naar bed.
	Jan goes	drunk	always	sick	to bed
	'When drunk, Jan always goes to bed sick.'

a'.

Jan is drunk ⇒ Jan goes to bed sick

b.	Jan gaat	ziek	(altijd)	humeurig	naar kantoor.
	Jan goes	ill	always	bad.tempered	to office
	'When ill, Jan always goes to his office bad-tempered.'

b'.

Jan is ill ⇒ Jan goes to his office bad-tempered

In (140), supplementive-I and –II are both predicated of the nominative subject Jan. The examples in (141) show that it is also possible that the two supplementives are predicated of different arguments in the clause. In (141a), supplementive-I nat'wet' is predicated of the direct object de overhemden'the shirts', whereas supplementive-II opgewekt'cheerful' is predicated of the subject Jan. In (141b), it is supplementive-I that is predicated of the subject, and supplementive-II that is predicated of the direct object.

141

a.		dat	Jan de overhemden	nat	altijd	opgewekt	glad	strijkt.
		that	Jan the shirts	wet	always	cheerful	smooth	irons

b.		dat	Jan de overhemden	opgewekt	altijd	nat	glad	strijkt.
		that	Jan the shirts	cheerful	always	wet	smooth	irons

It is however not possible to have two supplementives-I referring to two different arguments in the clause. The (a)-examples in (142) are uninterpretable. It is less clear whether the same thing holds for supplementive-II: although the (b)-examples are marked, they are certainly better than the (a)-examples.

142

dat Jan de overhemden opgewekt nat altijd glad strijkt.

a'.

dat Jan de overhemden nat opgewekt altijd glad strijkt.

dat Jan de overhemden altijd opgewekt nat glad strijkt.

b'.

dat Jan de overhemden altijd nat opgewekt glad strijkt.

Note that (142a) improves if the supplementive opgewekt is followed by an intonation break, which is indicated in (143a) by means of a dash, but nat then seems to be interpreted as a supplementive-II. Perhaps this is due to the fact that frequency adverbs need not be interpreted as clausal adverbs, but can occasionally also be interpreted as VP-adverbs; cf. Section 8.2.2, sub III. Example (142a') also seems to improve somewhat if nat is followed by an intonation break.

143

a.	?	dat Jan de overhemden opgewekt — nat altijd glad strijkt.
		'When Jan is cheerful, he always irons his shirt smooth while wet.'

b.	??	dat Jan de overhemden nat — opgewekt altijd glad strijkt.
		'Whenever the shirts are wet, Jan irons them smooth cheerful.'

[+] C. Distribution of the two supplementive types

The distribution of supplementive-II and supplementive-I may depend on certain properties of the clause they are part of. These will be discussed in the following two subsections.

[+] 1. Position of the event on the time axis

The examples in the previous subsections are all given in the present tense. It should be noted, however, that the present tense in these examples refers to an undetermined time interval and not to a specific point on the time axis (the “now"). When we revise these examples such that a punctual time reading is forced, e.g., by adding the adverb of time nu